• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 408 0

mask to the top layer. To erase away parts of this duplicate road layer, we’ll need to paint with black on the white mask. So, with your Foreground color set to black, get the Brush tool (B) and, in the Options Bar, choose a medium-sized, soft-edged brush from the Brush Picker. Now, paint over the right side of the duplicate road to make it disappear and show the road that’s below. Continue painting over toward the left and over the car to make it reappear. What we want to do here is bring back the original road that is under the duplicate copy, but we want to keep enough of the duplicate, so it appears that the road extends all the way to the left edge of our image.

STEP SEVEN:

When you’re done bringing back the road, if you see duplicate lines on it, try this: Click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a new blank layer, then select the Spot Healing Brush from the Toolbox (or just press J). In the Options Bar, make sure the Content-Aware option is selected and the Sample All Layers checkbox is turned on, then paint over any extra lines and cracks with a small brush. They’ll disappear in no time flat.

STEP EIGHT:

The next thing we’ll do is add some blur. Since the motorcycle is going through the tunnel, we’ll want to convey that movement. So, first, let’s create a merged layer of everything we’ve done so far by pressing Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E). This creates a new flattened layer of all our work, but still keeps all of our layers below it in case we need them again.

STEP NINE:

Go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. Radial Blur simulates movement from a panned camera, rather than just blurring everything in the photo. Set the Amount to something pretty low, like 15 (we don’t want to blur it too much). Under the Blur Method, choose Zoom, and under Quality, choose Best. Also, the default Blur Center will come from the middle, which won’t work for this photo, since the vanishing point of the tunnel is in the lower left. But you can change it by clicking on the Blur Center preview point and moving it to the lower left of the preview (as shown here). Click OK when you’re done and you’ll see a slight blur added to everything in the tunnel (lights, car, and road).

STEP 10:

Let’s add a slight motion blur to the car next. Duplicate the layer, then go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Set the Angle to about −8° (slightly downward to match the direction of the car) and the Distance to 80 pixels. Click OK to apply the blur.

* * *

Tip: Rename Your Layers

It’s not a bad idea at this point to double-click on each layer’s name in the Layers panel and rename them to something more descriptive, so they’re easier to keep track of.

* * *

STEP 11:

Press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon to add a black layer mask to the motion blur layer, which completely hides the layer. It’s still there, we just can’t see it. Then get the Brush tool, and with your Foreground color set to white, paint the motion blur layer back in only on the car in the lower left.

STEP 12:

Lastly (and this is purely artistic), I imagined the entire image having a blue tint to it, so we’ll do this by adding a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Hue/Saturation from the pop-up menu. Then, turn on the Colorize checkbox at the bottom of the Adjustments panel and it’ll apply a tint to the entire photo. Drag the Hue slider to 217 to add a blue tint and then drag the Saturation slider to 32. We now have the background photo prepped and ready for the motorcycle.

At this point, it’s probably a good idea to go to File>Save and choose Photoshop from the Format pop-up menu to save this as a PSD file, so you’re covered just in case.

Prepping the Motorcycle Image

In the last tutorial, you saw how to get the background image ready for the composite. Now, it’s time to get the motorcycle photo ready. We’ll first take a look at how the motorcyclist was photographed and any changes